[Corvettaholic]

So one of the guys at work, who happens to know a lot about marijuana, mentioned something called a vaporizer. Sounds like something I can market, so I looked into it. They're stupid simple, but I don't really understand the chemistry behind it. Basically, I have a glass dome with a heater plate in it. I put my tobacco on there, drugs are not for me, and I apply an electric current to the plate to heat it up. When its the 'right' temperature, the desired chemical is supposed to become a vapor and float around the glass dome bowl thing. Then you suck on the hose and inhale the vapor.

So what I'm asking is: how do they do that? Is there a specific heat I should be looking for that nicotine will become vapor and actually separate itself from a lump of tobacco leaves? I found plenty of info on cannabis, but that doesn't apply to me.

[limpet chicken]

Don't even try it man, it will taste absolutely disgusting, and given the toxicity of nicotine, it is fairly hazardous, nicotine has a LD:50 of about 60mg.

[Corvettaholic]

So if nicotine is a no-go, then the only possible purpose for this thing is marijuana then? Oh well. So much for that idea.

[Dude]

Along those lines, there was talk recently about using medicinal marijuana.  Can't something like an asthma inhaler be used for marijuana.  I see these old coots in California lighting up unfiltered joints and claiming that it alleviates pain.  Any potential health benefit from the marijuana would seem to be offset by the free radical damage from smoking it.

[lemonoman]

Don't forget that TECHNICALLY you can smoke any plant.  Some are poisonous...and most won't really get you 'high' or anything, it'll be like breathing in a housefire (with less plastic - unless you wrap your plant in Saran Wrap and smoke it   )

But the moral of the story is smoking almost anything usually isn't a good idea.  I personally don't even like inscence or super-powerful perfumes or anything like that.  It's kind of irritating...

[lemonoman]

and P.S. most people don't smoke the marijuana for the nicotine, if they're vaporizing and inhaling the vapour it's probably THC that's being vapourized...that's the chemical that gets you 'high'.

Who knew I'd actually use the stuff I learning in first-year university residence?  

[jdurg]

The vaporizer just sounds like an elaborate bong, and limpet is right about the nicotine.  It is an insidiously toxic poison.  The only reason it doesn't kill you when you smoke a cigarette is due to the fact that a good deal of it is lost during the burning process and your lungs get covered in so much tar that they can't absorb all of the nicotine.  Taking a pack of cigarettes, dumping out the tobacco and boiling it in water will leave you with a black resinous tar at the bottom of the pot which can be lethal by contact.  Nicotine is THAT poisonous.  (Anyone who has ever smoked a cigarette remembers their first experience; the nausea, lightheadedness, wanting to pass out, etc.  That's nicotine poisoning.  Now intensify that by about 100 and you'll know what it's like to die from it).

As for the medicinal marijuana, those who are lighting joints and bongs aren't using it for the medicinal purposes.  They just want to get high.  A 'safer' use of marijuana for medical purposes is in the form of the pills 'Dronabinol' and 'Marinol' which are basically purified THC in a pill form.  Eating a marijuana brownie would also be better as the 'high' effects won't be as intense, but the benefits of the increased appetite and anti-nausea feelings will last a lot longer due to the slow absportion through the digestive tract.  Smoking the marijuana when it's used for medicinal purposes really defeats the point of it's benefit.  It's like draining all your blood to get rid of your HIV infection.

[Corvettaholic]

I knew how poisionous nicotine is, yet I'm still a smoker, but I didn't how easily it is to die from it. Basically what I'm looking for is a legal, improved smoking gimmick. Something kind of neat so I can say 'Hey guys, look what I made!'. I was also considering making a hooka out of an old carburator. For those of you who have been to a hooka bar/smoke shop: You know that sheesa stuff they smoke from those? Very little smoke and nicotine, but tastes really good! Scented smoke I guess. To me the stuff looks like gloppy tobacco leaves that are simply heated with coals and not lit on fire. What about sticking some of that in a vaporizer? Get the scented oils or whatever is in there to turn into a vapor/smoke without using combustion? I think it'd be safer than smoking a cigarette since you're not burning anything, just getting the taste-good-stuff from the sheesa. I already know straight up tobacco is a no-go due to the death hazard. Pity.

[lemonoman]

If you're REALLY looking for a thrill, try getting an old GC.  Then try to rig up a continuous injection system or something, and connect like a hundred columns together.  Light a joint at the one end and wait a while.  The smoke will go into the machine, and separate it (with many coelutions of course)

If it works ideally, which it won't, then you get each of the 40,000 chemicals separately, one after another.  What an experience!  And you can make a drinking game out of it, where you guess what the chemical that just eluted was...and if you're wrong, you drink.

Good times.

[Corvettaholic]

What's a GC? Also, I don't smoke marijuana, but I know some people who do. If I could make a really cool sheesa smoke device, which is the legal stuff I smoke in addition to cigarettes, then I'm sure I can sell this device to them. But from the description of this machine of yours, it sounds really neat! Oh, I just inherited a couple transformers that step up 12VDC to 4000VDC. Figure I could use that for something cool.

[limpet chicken]

I almost died from nicotine poisoning once, it is NOT fun, I felt nauseous, dizzy, extremities went numb, and I puked about 15 times in half an hour, its not a nice f&#^$*@ way to go, trust me on that

[Corvettaholic]

I've had minor nicotine poisoning before, and its not fun. When I started smoking, I managed to hork down half a pack of lucky strike non-filters. Felt so bad. In light of this and good advice I've been given (other than quitting smoking) is to not smoke regular tobacco out of this vaporizer thingy. Instead, I want to try that flavored tobacco from the middle-east that you normally put in a hooka. Perfectly legal and tasty... but what chemicals should I watch out for when vaporizing that stuff?

[jdurg]

A GC is a Gas Chromatograph.    Also, it's really impossible to just vaporize the nicotine and not have any carcinogenic compounds in there.  Nicotine itself is a fairly potent carcinogen, hence how smokeless tobacco still causes large amounts of cancers.  The pesticides, fertilizers, and various other chemicals used during tobacco growing, in addition to the nicotine, will all vaporize and you'll be inhaling that as well.  There is no such thing as 'safe tobacco' and a 'carcinogen free' tobacco no matter how you ingest it.

[limpet chicken]

Jdurg, I have always read, that nicotine itself, is not carcinogenic, there are further alkaloids in tobacco, even smokeless tobacco however, nornicotine is known to be not carcinogenic, but more toxic, and anabasine, another pyridine alkaloid, is definately known as a carcinogen.

[movies]

Jdurg, I have always read, that nicotine itself, is not carcinogenic, there are further alkaloids in tobacco, even smokeless tobacco however, nornicotine is known to be not carcinogenic, but more toxic, and anabasine, another pyridine alkaloid, is definately known as a carcinogen.

Some people think otherwise.

Also, to add to what jdurg said above, it's impossible to burn anything without producing carcinogens.